Yes Indeed. EQ was the first MMORPG I ever played and I really got into it
for a long time. I won't embarass myself by telling you the number of hours
I logged, but suffice it to say I made a level 51 wizard plus several
assorted level 30+ chars. Asheron's call is a very different type of game,
and more solo friendly then EQ. I think Ultima Online 2 (also called
Origin) will be the next interesting one, but there are several different
types coming out next year.
On the subject of clouds. Looks like there are several different ways to do
it, the basic perlin noise algorithm looks nice for the generation of the
textures. Then you can either make your texture and use texcoords to move
it, or rebuild it each time for nicer effects. Guess it depends on how much
processing power you want to spend on clouds considering everything else
that has to be managed.
Dave Yazel
----- Original Message -----
From: Ice Bone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] Clouds
Yeah it's called EverCrack, EverCamp, EverCrap and
EverQueue too.
No thanks. I played that game for about 5 months from
release and I have had enough of it. The game has a
number of bugs (called "features" by the design
company) and it's customer service is second to none.
On Mars. :)
Seriously. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless
you either hate your life, or want to. The entire
game is based on acquiring stuff, which requires you
to "camp" critters or places. So everything can be
rendered into a comparative table where x (item) = y
(hours) required to acquire x (item). And if it's a
quest it might take 10-12 items to complete it.
As an example there's one quest where one critter has
an item that you must have to move on to the next
phase of the quest. This critter only shows up
(spawns) once per 2 days. And there are 40 people
waiting to kill it. So you have to take a (drum roll)
....... number! Hence the "EverQueue" nickname. It's
also called EverWait too. :)
On the other hand.
I think you're right about the clouds. Asheron's Call
does the same thing with the "clouds". It simply uses
two different textured layers and then moves them at
different speeds across the sky. The only problem is
that, in both games, the clouds are moving at like 500
MPH. ROFL!
ed
--- Steve Pietrowicz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Man, I *wish* Everquest had clouds like that.
> Phew....that's a really
> cool URL.
>
> The clouds in Everquest are actually just texture
> maps, done in some paint
> program. I'm not sure which they use. It could
> have been generated by 3D
> Studio Ma. You can turn the clouds off completely
> (I think), or have one
> layer or two layer clouds. It's been a while since
> I've had one layer
> going, but I think they have clouds painted on a
> blue background. The two
> layer effect is using the one layer texture in
> conjunction with a second
> layer of clouds in a texture map with transparency
> turned on. The texture
> maps move at different rates, and you get a nice
> looking cloud
> effect. ...At least as nice as current Everquest
> technology can do. I
> would expect EQ2 and other games will have even
> nicer effects.
>
> Anyway, the cloud textures appear to me to be thrown
> onto the inside of a
> giant sphere that encapsulates the whole outdoor
> zone that you're in. The
> best place to see this effect is on the "good" boat
> to Kunark, right after
> you zone into the Finora Vie area. If you face
> away from where the boat
> will dock, you can see how the sky curves towards
> the edge of the zone.
>
> I believe they change the tint of the background on
> the textures as day
> progresses to night.
>
> It's a pretty simple technique, but fairly
> effective.
>
> ....At least, that's my guess on how they do it,
> based solely on
> observation. :-)
>
> If anyone here wants to try Everquest, I highly
> recommend the game. The
> graphics aren't state of the art by today's
> standards (They have to deal
> with system requirements for systems that are a year
> or two old, since
> that's when they started it), but the game itself is
> very
> compelling. Pretty addictive too. I saw
> someone's quote on a message
> board once... "Everquest makes Crack look like Diet
> Coke". Man, that's
> the truth.... :-)
>
> Steve
>
> At 04:02 PM 9/29/2000 -0700, Paul Byrne wrote:
> >Hi Dave,
> >
> >Check out
> http://vterrain.org/Atmosphere/clouds.html
> >
> >Rgds
> >
> >Paul
> >
> >
> > >MIME-Version: 1.0
> > >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> > >X-Priority: 3
> > >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
> > >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE
> V5.00.2615.200
> > >Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 18:51:07 -0400
> > >From: David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > >Subject: [JAVA3D] Clouds
> > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > >
> > >Hi all:
> > >
> > >I have scoured the web looking for techniques for
> generating clouds ala
> > >Asheron's call and Everquest. Even came up blank
> on Gamasutra. Can anyone
> > >toss me a hint? In particular I am looking for
> moving clouds. Should I be
> > >using a multi-texture for highlighting a plasma
> function?
> > >
> > >Dave Yazel
> > >
> >
>
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