Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 11:43:47 +0300
From: Tommi Leino <namhas@netmill.fi>
Organization: Netmill Information Technology
To: majik4-design@majik.netti.fi
Subject: dynamic or static 3D objects?

3D HUMANOID:

                         +--+
                         |  | -- head
                         ++++
                          || -- neck
  left shoulder -- +-++---++---++-+ -- right shoulder
                   +-+| chest  ++-+
 left upper arm -- | ||        || | -- right upper arm
                   | |+--------+| |
                   | || sto-   || |
     left elbow -- +-+| mach   |+-+ -- right elbow
                   +-++--------++-+
                   | |+--+--+--+| | <-- hip
   left forearm -- +-+|  |  |  |+-+ -- right forearm
     left wrist -- +-+|  |  |  |+-+ -- right wrist
      left hand -- +-++--+  +--++-+ -- right hand
         left knee -- +--+  +--+ -- right knee
         left shin -- |  |  |  | -- right shin
                      |  |  |  |
                      +--+  +--+
        left ankle -- +--+  +--+ -- right ankle
         left foot -- +--+  +--+ -- right foot

3D MAMMAL:

                      rear
              stomach |
        chest |       |
head    |     |       |
  +--+ +-----+-----+-----+
  |  +-+     |     |     |
  +--+-+     |     |     |
      ||     |     |     |
      |+-----+-----+-----+
   neck|| -- upper      || -- upper hind leg
       ||    front leg  ||
       ||               ||
       ++ -- front paw  ++ -- hind paw

 +'s are vertices, however, they're not exact in this picture, since they're
 quite hard to represent in ASCII, but should give the idea.

 -'s are lines between vertices. their length should be dynamic, according
 to the height/weight of the object and percentage values that will be
 added to each hitloc in race.c, percentages of how much of height/weight
 will be in some certain hitlocation. By that way we can have fat stomaches
 and such. This percentage also should be possible to changed and saved
 later to individual objects, so one can grow a fat stomach :) Exceptional
 muscles should also do something to these percentages.

 By using this system all of our living objects would be different in some
 way. Only very rare individuals of same race have _exactly_ same weight
 and height. Also, these will be texture mapped according to the clothing
 or armor they're wearing, and this way they can be easily placed over some
 certain hit-location. Also, if they're got hit we can easily cut the
 hit-location off and then all can clearly see that the living is missing
 the hit-location. If the hit-location is not cut off, then we can draw
 some blood on it, depending on how much it had got it.

 Compare! Other alternative would be to use static 3D objects. This way
 we could have better freedom to do unique monsters, but then all individuals
 of the "unique"-monster race would be looking exactly same. It would
 be harder to do any special features dynamically like fat stomach, and it
 would be harder to cut limbs off, add hitloc specific textures and such
 things. If there is no suitable bodytype to create an unique monster race,
 then we just do a new bodytype and by that way we have almost the same
 freedom.

 So, what do you think?

-- 
Systems expert                       http://www.netmill.fi/
Tommi.Leino@netmill.fi               tel.   +358-9-612 623 43
Netmill Information Technology       fax.   +358-9-612 623 11
Neitsytpolku 5, FIN-00140 Helsinki   mobile +358-50-339 1334