Spring Break and Math Stuff

So I have finally come to spring break this semester, though it won't be much of one as I said that I would be available to work in the computer labs (which I anticipate that those labs will be empty).  It will be nice to have a little break from new information though.

On the brighter side I finally got to the section of linear algebra that helps me figure out how to do the triangular tessellations that I was hoping to construct the landscape from.  Standard Minecraft style games use the standard x = 1, y = 1, z =1 3d coordinate system, which makes a lot of sense since that is by far the easiest way to represent something in 3d.  These are known as the unit vectors and are written as x = (1,0,0), y = (0,1,0), and z = (0,0,1).  There is a lot more to it, but I won't bore you with the details.  For games the screen will represent an x,y plane because well, lets face it, it is really a 2 dimensional space.  Even "3d" monitors and TVs are just a combination of 2 2d planes which creates the illusion of 3d.

So taking the height component as the y, I have figured out that y will still remain a good old 1.  The x component will need to be .5, but not on every line rather every other line.  The z component is the nasty one as it will be the square root of 3 divided by 2 instead of 1.  So my plan is to create a constant variable called DEPTH ( constants are supposed in all caps like that) which is equal to the square root of 3 divided by 2.  The z can be expressed as a number of DEPTHS, then if there is an even amount of z the x component will be the normal 1, 2 ,3 etc. but if the amount of z is odd, then x will be 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, etc...  Now I wish to clarify that this is just for finding the points which are the corners of each triblock.

Now many of you are probably thinking why not copy the cubic approach that everyone else is using, since it equates to much less work.  I guess that the answer is that I am just stubborn, that and I don't wan this to be dismissed as yet another Minecraft ripoff ( which may happen anyway, but at least I can claim that it is different).

A 3d triangle block

Yes that right I have finally perfected for use the triangle block.  I even was able to do an UV unwrap so I can paint textures onto it.  And so begins the lovely process of material creation.  As I finish each one I'll post it here for inspection.  This block has the UV test grid displayed on it to show how all of the squares are nice and well, square.  As soon as I get a nice processed metal look I'll also start making structures.  I'm thinking I will need to do some sort of special graphic so one will be able to tell the structures apart.  I have an idea of and electric doorway for the teleporter, and the class change will display a wireframe hologram of a character so it will be clear what it is for.  The communications array will have nice glowing towers, and I'm not sure that I will need to do anything special for healing and shield structures since they will be an area effect and players won't have to do anything to interact with them.  At any rate I'm going to get started making blocks now.