What map height is really needed?

User avatar
sorcerykid
Member
Posts: 1841
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 15:36
GitHub: sorcerykid
In-game: Nemo
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: What map height is really needed?

by sorcerykid » Post

Byakuren wrote: Another option would be to change the y coordinate to be 32-bits (~4 billion nodes). This would allow for around a million dimensions at 4096 nodes high, which should be plenty. The main problem with this approach is that the "node index" would no longer be representable in Lua, because the index will be a 64-bit integer that cannot be represented exactly by a double (Lua's number type). Lua 5.3 and LuaJIT have support for integers, but in the case of 5.3 the width of the integer is machine-dependent. In LuaJIT you can specify having a 64-bit integer, but you cannot use it to index into a table.
That is my concern as well. In several of my mods I hash the position of nodes to be able to store them efficiently into a table. This would no longer be possible if any or all of the axes were 32 bits as the hash would overflow. The only sensible workaround might be to create a paging system for the hashes, possibly using mapblocks as "pages".

User avatar
Linuxdirk
Member
Posts: 3218
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:21
In-game: Linuxdirk
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Linuxdirk » Post

sorcerykid wrote:That is my concern as well. In several of my mods I hash the position of nodes to be able to store them efficiently into a table. This would no longer be possible if any or all of the axes were 32 bits as the hash would overflow. The only sensible workaround might be to create a paging system for the hashes, possibly using mapblocks as "pages".
If the devs weren’t so uber scared about breaking backwards compatibility Minetest could have an actually unlimited world size.

User avatar
sorcerykid
Member
Posts: 1841
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 15:36
GitHub: sorcerykid
In-game: Nemo
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: What map height is really needed?

by sorcerykid » Post

Minetest could have a lot of things :P

I can't tell you how many cool new features have been incorporated into the Minetest S3 engine that I'm certain would never be approved (or else were proposed and disapproved) in the official branch. I'm able to do so many things on my server that ordinary servers still can't do, or at least not easily.

User avatar
rubenwardy
Moderator
Posts: 6972
Joined: Tue Jun 12, 2012 18:11
GitHub: rubenwardy
IRC: rubenwardy
In-game: rubenwardy
Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by rubenwardy » Post

If we break compatibility, users complain
If we don't break compatibility, users complain
Renewed Tab (my browser add-on) | Donate | Mods | Minetest Modding Book

Hello profile reader

User avatar
Fixer
Member
Posts: 904
Joined: Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:23
IRC: Fixer
In-game: Fixer
Location: Ukraine

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Fixer » Post

To me, 65 x 65 km size is more or less enough, since most of server population occupies 2 x 2 km at most, BUT what is worrying me is this wasted vertical space, 256 blocks of height in minecraft is pretty much enough for most folks, in minetest we can slice this 65 kms of vertical space into 10-20-30-40-50-60 realms with different biomes and terrain, skyboxes, rules, physics, different mobs, bosses, ores, with a lot of creativity, yet we are stuck with this "stupid as brick half-dead MTG" on life support provided by paramat with nothing except blocks, simple smelting, storage and farming, there is so much potential.

User avatar
burli
Member
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2015 13:18

Re: What map height is really needed?

by burli » Post

Fixerol wrote: BUT what is worrying me is this wasted vertical space, 256 blocks of height in minecraft is pretty much enough for most folks, in minetest we can slice this 65 kms of vertical space into 10-20-30-40-50-60 realms with different biomes and terrain, skyboxes, rules, physics, different mobs, bosses, ores, with a lot of creativity
256 Blocks of height is not much. Especially 64 Blocks of depth is ridiculous. But I think 30km of air and 30km of stone is also ridiculous. A hight above ground of about 2048 blocks and a depth of 6144 (total of 8192) would be a size I would say it makes sense. You have enough space for floating islands above the ground and a lot of space for giant caves and you can create 8 Dimensions. Not very much, but a start. But some people like to dig down 30km, for whatever reason.

User avatar
voxelproof
Member
Posts: 1087
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2017 08:13
Location: Europe

Re: What map height is really needed?

by voxelproof » Post

Fixerol wrote:To me, 65 x 65 km size is more or less enough, since most of server population occupies 2 x 2 km at most, BUT what is worrying me is this wasted vertical space, 256 blocks of height in minecraft is pretty much enough for most folks
I see this problem this way: both Minecraft and Minetest committed a fault of incostistency as far as the proportion height/plane is concerned. The usable height in Minecraft above the sea level is only 192 and it is really absurd if you expect the worlds to be really interesting for exploration. On the other hand the height of over 30 km in Minetest is just as absurdly exaggerrated as absurdly the airspace of Minecraft is flattened.

The advantage of a smaller base in MT is that it makes worlds feel more 'cosy', explorable in the sense that if you want you can see almost everything in a few days/weeks time. This is utterly impossible in huge swathes of Minecraft realms were a player sometimes experiences sorta "open worlds overwhelming solitude". It is not very likely to have such a feel in relatively small MT worlds were you can pass from one edge to another in a matter of minutes and not years.

I think that to make this hight of Minetest sensible, the vertical dimension should be somehow 'opened' via introducing a game were climbing is an important and rewarding activity, were some resources are found only in higher altitudes and montainous areas, were high peaks offer opportunity of evading aggresive mobs etc. Now in singleplayer nobody bothers to find a path uphill when it's always possible to switch "fly mode".

And as to the backwards compatibility - well, progress sometimes requires hard choices. Maybe widening the horizontal size of the world isn't worth the backlash it could probably provoke, I don't know. And certainly it's something that can be done only if developers have good ideas for improved map generators to fill such gigantic space with believable, explorable and diversified biomes and terrain formations. I am not sure whether this can be done with the present (however quite agreeable) mapgens.

,
To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

User avatar
Linuxdirk
Member
Posts: 3218
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:21
In-game: Linuxdirk
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Linuxdirk » Post

voxelproof wrote:The disadvantage of a smaller base in MT is that it makes worlds feel more 'cosy',
FTFY
voxelproof wrote:This is utterly impossible in huge swathes of Minecraft realms were a player sometimes experiences sorta "open worlds overwhelming solitude".
Great, isn’t it? I wish Minetest would be that large. As said: unlimited world sizes (theoretically unlimited, not technically unlimited - you are still limited by system capacity) are absolutely possible.

Lets take the size of Minecraft and add the same height, so you get a cube 60000000*60000000*60000000. It ranges from -30000000,-30000000,-30000000 to +30000000,+30000000,+30000000. Now let’s define this cube as 0 and place it on a coordinate system ranging from -30000000,-30000000,-30000000 to +30000000,+30000000,+30000000, too. This allows placing 60000000*60000000*60000000 of said cubes on a coordinate system.

A node address would look like 0,0,0:0,0,0 where 0,0,0 defines what cube to use and 0,0,0 what node to use in the addressed cube.

This would allow 3600000000000000*3600000000000000*3600000000000000 nodes large worlds. (3.6 quadrillion nodes in each direction!)

… and I just made this up in my mind by thinking about it a few minutes. It is totally not a matter of concept but only a matter of how to implement this concept. And I am pretty sure there are better ways to address nodes. I just used the system we already have and extended it.

Old worlds wouldn’t break, they just have to be converted to the new format by adding the cube address part to all node addresses.
voxelproof wrote:And as to the backwards compatibility - well, progress sometimes requires hard choices.
Yes, and that is what major releases and Git tags are for. Unfortunately both aren’t used as much as they should be in the Minetest scene.

User avatar
voxelproof
Member
Posts: 1087
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2017 08:13
Location: Europe

Re: What map height is really needed?

by voxelproof » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:
voxelproof wrote:The disadvantage of a smaller base in MT is that it makes worlds feel more 'cosy',
FTFY
Well. er... don't bother.... ;)
This would allow 3600000000000000*3600000000000000*3600000000000000 nodes large worlds. (3.6 quadrillion nodes in each direction!)

… and I just made this up in my mind by thinking about it a few minutes. It is totally not a matter of concept but only a matter of how to implement this concept. And I am pretty sure there are better ways to address nodes. I just used the system we already have and extended it.
No Man's Sky was hyped by a prospect of 18 quintillion planets and Hello Games unfortunately did implement it. Space Engine, a Russian enterprise to send humans into virtual outer space, allows even larger number of realistic celestial bodies, including full-scale galaxies. And, what's the best, it runs quite well on my low-end laptop without gfx card.

So, well...
To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

User avatar
Linuxdirk
Member
Posts: 3218
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:21
In-game: Linuxdirk
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Linuxdirk » Post

voxelproof wrote:No Man's Sky was hyped by a prospect of 18 quintillion planets
As research showed the number is lower than that. Plus: They were not able to implement even half of what they announced. NMS is the epitome of how not to develop a game. They failed miserably on all levels. NMS should not be used as an example for anything.
voxelproof wrote:So, well...
It’s not about filling the space. World generation could still be done around -1024 and +2000 and it would be absolutely fine. It’s about not having to worry about running into a barrier on horizontal level and about the option to add multiple million “dimensions” each mulltiple million nodes high.

User avatar
voxelproof
Member
Posts: 1087
Joined: Sat Aug 05, 2017 08:13
Location: Europe

Re: What map height is really needed?

by voxelproof » Post

Linuxdirk wrote:
voxelproof wrote:No Man's Sky was hyped by a prospect of 18 quintillion planets
As research showed the number is lower than that. Plus: They were not able to implement even half of what they announced. NMS is the epitome of how not to develop a game.
Yes, I know all this - I was hyped too and that's why I wrote "unfortunately". Immense universe with the depth of a puddle. Thank heavens I waited until the release and finally didn't have to regret money thrown into mud.
They failed miserably on all levels. NMS should not be used as an example for anything.
I strongly disagree. AFAIK NMS is used as an example for marketers of a perfect marketing campaign.
voxelproof wrote:So, well...
It’s not about filling the space. World generation could still be done around -1024 and +2000 and it would be absolutely fine. It’s about not having to worry about running into a barrier on horizontal level and about the option to add multiple million “dimensions” each mulltiple million nodes high.
I think sometimes 'less' means 'more'. I'd be glad if the present height of the worlds in MT was utilised at least in 10%, making hiking, walking or searching for resources a real challenge.
Last edited by voxelproof on Sun Jan 14, 2018 22:00, edited 1 time in total.
To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

User avatar
sorcerykid
Member
Posts: 1841
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 15:36
GitHub: sorcerykid
In-game: Nemo
Location: Illinois, USA

Re: What map height is really needed?

by sorcerykid » Post

Linuxdirk wrote: … and I just made this up in my mind by thinking about it a few minutes. It is totally not a matter of concept but only a matter of how to implement this concept. And I am pretty sure there are better ways to address nodes. I just used the system we already have and extended it.
I see, you made it up in your mind. Yet at the top of this page I had already suggested such a method, and you even replied to that post :P

viewtopic.php?p=308044#p308044

User avatar
Linuxdirk
Member
Posts: 3218
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:21
In-game: Linuxdirk
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Linuxdirk » Post

sorcerykid wrote:Yet at the top of this page I had already suggested such a method, and you even replied to that post :P
So this is where I got the idea from :)

User avatar
Vapalus
Member
Posts: 112
Joined: Wed Nov 15, 2017 17:16

Re: What map height is really needed?

by Vapalus » Post

Wondering why people want less height. It’s not as if god will strike you down where you stand if you don’t digg to -66.000, is it?
„Less height“ is not really advantageous.
Minecraft has limited height due to technical issues, mostly because of light calculations.
A man much wiser than me once said: "go away, you are bothering me"

User avatar
TenPlus1
Member
Posts: 3715
Joined: Mon Jul 29, 2013 13:38
In-game: TenPlus1
Contact:

Re: What map height is really needed?

by TenPlus1 » Post

If it was possible to register a biome in the sky (not floatlands) and have it generate a new base (specific biome definition flag) we could build create a new base level from the the higher limits of the mapgen that could be put to good use without having to resort to slower voxelmanip mapgens.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 6 guests