3D Terrain Generation

[TemporarySolutn]

I know alot of people have talked about this before, but I wanted to know how realistic this actually is with the engine but also in light of new dont starve together 3d block placing technology! (that mod by PicklePlayer that allows people to build in 3d). I would really appreciate a solid answer from the dev's, even if it is as simple as "we are looking into it". I just think it would make DST alot better and wanted to get a better understanding of other people's thoughts on it aswell.

 

What I mean is more like this

Where we have different layers of the world, you dont nessicarily need to be able to actually build off of these, I feel like this might not even be too hard, I feel like the majority of problems would come from rendering it, drawing it properly, etc

[Wardin25]

its fun for a while, and has many cool uses for decorations, but its clear the game wasnt built for it

one example is the bird view, that is really incompatible with being indoors. another is that the jumping feature has barely no use since dst wasnt made with it in mind.

[SomebodyRandom]

Having played the mod, I think it's fun for a while. Then the novelty is over and Isometric Don't Starve is still better to play.

[. . .]

its a very great mod! if dst wants to take a major step in evolving like it did with oceans it would be with allowing to build and explore higher places

[NightfallsCurse]

Just as long as it won't allow you to walk on water like the mod does

[SomebodyRandom]

10 hours ago, ShadowQueen said:

Just as long as it won't allow you to walk on water like the mod does

It doesn't. It allows you to place platforms and walk on top of the platforms, but you can't walk on water.

[TemporarySolutn]

edited for more clarification 

[.]

DST don't have 3D shading system, sun location, flexable camera which make things harder and ugly.

Would I want it, if it's gonna be good why not!

Would I think it's gonna happen, no.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Slagger said:

DST don't have 3D shading system, sun location, flexable camera which make things harder and ugly.

Would I want it, if it's gonna be good why not!

Would I think it's gonna happen, no.

I wouldn’t be so quick to say it won’t happen, there was a (now archived) thread awhile back that got a ton of replies called elevated land, someone shared clips of Winona carefully placeing walls and being able to walk up them.

I even created this lovely little image to go with that thread

The thing about this image is near Wilson you see a slanted slope, this is where you would be able to walk up to the elevated area of land, and you also see a cute Carrat running across a narrow bridge of land that Wilson walk under, and then across to reach the Caves entrance that’s actually part of a wall instead of just a hole in the ground. Once Wilson reaches this cave entrance he then crafts a roll down ladder which extends back to the bottom where he started.

Elevated land like this in a 2D Game HAS existed before (in fact I draw a large majority of this concept art from Sonic games and how THOSE started out as 2D side scrollers and eventually transformed into things like Sonic 3D Blast.. This may be NEW territory for Klei but it’s something I strongly feel they NEED to do.. if not with DST, than defiantly in a DS sequel..

Elevated Land has so many additional gameplay properties it can bring to the table, Such as- Taking cover underneath an extended cliff ledge to avoid rain damage, having earthquakes/landslides terraform new elevations, being able to craft things like bridges between elevated lands by placing a starting point at A and a connecting point at B and then rolling the bridge across like a rope bridge.

Then there’s also… Klei’s own official vignette artwork which suggests mountains and cliffs should’ve been in the game a long time ago.

Now do I expect these changes in the next update? Of course not… but I do hope Klei is at the very least, “Toying around with it.”

[NightfallsCurse]

10 hours ago, SomebodyRandom said:

It doesn't. It allows you to place platforms and walk on top of the platforms, but you can't walk on water

Used to be that way, it was just a bug, but you would drown if you attempted to

[SomebodyRandom]

2 hours ago, ShadowQueen said:

Used to be that way, it was just a bug, but you would drown if you attempted to

No, you still drown if you try to walk on water. Nothing's changed. It's even mentioned in the mod page like it's a feature.

[Digi_056]

some hills and such might be more feasible

[ZombieDupe]

The game is almost impossible to learn on your own even through just controls because it isn't common sense for most people to check the controls, especially if them reading them anyway have no association for what the controls mean. So even if they checked controls once or twice, it is logistically a feedback loop of not understanding what you need to do, needing to understand it in order to recognise controls for a solution, then recognising that you need the controls and check what those are for executing a specific command for your character to do in a given scenario.

Where am I going with this impossible-to-understand-for-most-of-you paragraph that would have any relevance to this thread? The turning of the camera, that is pressing Q and E can be obnoxious to some people if they even knew about the fact that they can even do this. Most people don't if they're new to the game, maybe not even if you have played for a while. If you are going to make the game 3D you would HAVE to make sure people can turn their camera regularly near the beginning of when they start it, otherwise the game would become even more unplayable than it already is if you are given free camera control that you don't know how to use.

In other words, I think we need to specify important controls to players when they are relevant through gameplay as things happen before we can think about more 3D in this type of game. Ultimately I would love to see some hills and the potential the access to another dimension of navigation would allow for content especially. Just my two cents...

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, ZombieDupe said:

turning of the camera, pressing Q and E can be obnoxious to some people if they even knew about the fact that they can even do this. Most people don't if they're new to the game, maybe not even if you have played for a while. If you are going to make the game 3D you would HAVE to make sure people can turn their camera regularly near the beginning of when they start it, otherwise the game would become even more unplayable than it already is if you are given free camera control that you don't know how to use.

In other words, I think we need to specify important controls to players when they are relevant through gameplay as things happen before we can think about more 3D in this type of game. Ultimately I would love to see some hills and the potential the access to another dimension of navigation would allow for content especially. Just my two cents...

on Xbox controllers turning the camera is as simple as pressing the Left or Right shoulder buttons.

This is important to note: because the MASTS on boats are huge & block the majority of view on a boat and if you DONT rotate the camera angle a handful of cookie cutters on your boat will be your undoing.. you want SEE the pesky little pests behind your mast eating into your vessel.

Camera Rotation already plays an important part into gameplay Admit-ably I do not rotate mine often because that’s an easy way for me to get myself lost when viewing my map. BUT.. rotating the camera is already important. 

Additional Camera angles could be added such as a Top down view if needed by letting the player hold the LB and RB buttons in at the same time.

For Keyboard and mouse it may be more complex but with controllers it’s easy.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

the amount of time and money that reworking the entire game to fit into a 3d game can be used into adding more ocean, cave or main island stuff, a 3rd shard or even creating a real life version of wes

[TemporarySolutn]

On 8/27/2021 at 11:36 AM, Slagger said:

DST don't have 3D shading system, sun location, flexable camera which make things harder and ugly.

I was talking about terrain, not ANY of that

On 8/28/2021 at 6:44 AM, ZombieDupe said:

The game is almost impossible to learn on your own even through just controls because it isn't common sense for most people to check the controls, especially if them reading them anyway have no association for what the controls mean. So even if they checked controls once or twice, it is logistically a feedback loop of not understanding what you need to do, needing to understand it in order to recognise controls for a solution, then recognising that you need the controls and check what those are for executing a specific command for your character to do in a given scenario.

Where am I going with this impossible-to-understand-for-most-of-you paragraph that would have any relevance to this thread? The turning of the camera, that is pressing Q and E can be obnoxious to some people if they even knew about the fact that they can even do this. Most people don't if they're new to the game, maybe not even if you have played for a while. If you are going to make the game 3D you would HAVE to make sure people can turn their camera regularly near the beginning of when they start it, otherwise the game would become even more unplayable than it already is if you are given free camera control that you don't know how to use.

In other words, I think we need to specify important controls to players when they are relevant through gameplay as things happen before we can think about more 3D in this type of game. Ultimately I would love to see some hills and the potential the access to another dimension of navigation would allow for content especially. Just my two cents...

irrelevant and incorrect, I can immediately tell you based this on what you feel not any kind of research

On 8/28/2021 at 10:13 AM, ArubaroBeefalo said:

the amount of time and money that reworking the entire game to fit into a 3d game

Right, so go on tell me how long it would take and how much it would cost and what needs to be reworked to make it fit into a 3d game. Like, just so you know there IS a Y Axis, and you CAN use it 

On 8/27/2021 at 8:44 PM, SomebodyRandom said:

you still drown if you try to walk on water

Kind offtopic but I teleported my friend on the water as a joke because I thought he will instantly sink, he did not, he was walking around and was fine saying "I AM IMMORTAL" until I shot him with a blowdart updating something and making him sink lmao

I also want to point out how people are like "You cant do this because of this or that" and what would you have said 2-3 years ago if I asked for an shipwrecked ocean in DST? or if I asked before Shipwrecked was a thing. I am probably the least optimistic person in the forums but damn you don't need to shoot this sh*t down so quickly, regardless of how much work might have to be put into it, it CAN be done and you alone will not be able to guess if its worth it or not with your limited experience, you arent a dev and I know most people here havent written a single line of code, and most who have dont understand what takes you 3 days might take someone 3 minutes

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, TemporarySolutn said:

Right, so go on tell me how long it would take and how much it would cost and what needs to be reworked to make it fit into a 3d game. Like, just so you know there IS a Y Axis, and you CAN use it

Enough to dont be worth in the short term when there are that much things thqt can be improved or added. 

You have to rework the world gen, mobs ia, a camera adapted to it, optimization for that 3d terrains.... they can just add more mobs and biomes instead 

[ZombieDupe]

On 8/28/2021 at 2:10 PM, Mike23Ua said:

on Xbox controllers turning the camera is as simple as pressing the Left or Right shoulder buttons.

This is important to note: because the MASTS on boats are huge & block the majority of view on a boat and if you DONT rotate the camera angle a handful of cookie cutters on your boat will be your undoing.. you want SEE the pesky little pests behind your mast eating into your vessel.

Camera Rotation already plays an important part into gameplay Admit-ably I do not rotate mine often because that’s an easy way for me to get myself lost when viewing my map. BUT.. rotating the camera is already important. 

Additional Camera angles could be added such as a Top down view if needed by letting the player hold the LB and RB buttons in at the same time.

For Keyboard and mouse it may be more complex but with controllers it’s easy.

Some people (people who have never played games much before) don't even know these buttons exist, let alone try out using them. This is why it's important to show displays in-game for controls when they become important, and... actually show them with good visuals, people won't automatically understand what "L1" or "Left Shoulder" button means, I have a secondary research video source for this actually. Also controllers are a good example of Klei setting up display for all interactions with something close to you or hovered in your inventory, but not on keyboard + mouse. Why the heck is this? This means you are likely to learn more about the game control-wise when playing with a controller as opposed to mouse + keyboard.

Masts are definitely a good example of camera rotation possibly being necessary to learn (though not necessarily, if you put them on the edge of the boat), but it's also something you would deal with occasionally. With 3D terrain, camera turning would definitely become much more prominent and necessary by comparison. Imagine fighting something behind a hill with a mouse-click or mouse-hold and being unable to see and click on yourself or the thing that is attacking your character from behind the hill that is in-between your character and your camera.

4 hours ago, TemporarySolutn said:

irrelevant and incorrect, I can immediately tell you based this on what you feel not any kind of research

You do realise getting research for this would be incredibly difficult? Do you want me to give you an essay with dozens of citations or something? Klei doesn't do much alpha-testing with control groups because they are a small company and that would be too expensive, heck they rely on the beta-test players to extensively test the game and report issues free of charge. I have done some research on game design overall and it would certainly support this player-to-control issue. As a starting point for your own research, I can give you one example I mentioned before, which is a video discussing a new player's experience with games and controls are one very important aspect of it. I would suggest taking a look at this video, then making a response. You can't dismiss a point simply because no evidence to support a train of through does not, you have to think about the and whether evidence is even all that necessary just to present a point.

Evidence certainly helps, but the necessity entirely depends on how extraordinary a claim presented is perceived (if you think my claim is extraordinary you probably understand little to nothing about game design). Given I was clear enough, what I claimed should be evidently common sense if anything. If every point required a bunch of facts and research to be any level of valid none would make any points, and we would be stuck in loops of doing extensive research for the most minute things, which at a certain point becomes too time-consuming and ridiculous. Or do you also want me to present research and evidence regarding the point regarding the claim that extensive research being ridiculous and time-consuming for a simple forum post to make a point for people who may not care or even understand the contents of as well?

4 hours ago, TemporarySolutn said:

Right, so go on tell me how long it would take and how much it would cost and what needs to be reworked to make it fit into a 3d game. Like, just so you know there IS a Y Axis, and you CAN use it 

More evidence to me you don't understand much about game design, period.

[TemporarySolutn]

1 hour ago, ZombieDupe said:

Some people (people who have never played games much before) don't even know these buttons exist, let alone try out using them. This is why it's important to show displays in-game for controls when they become important, and... actually show them with good visuals, people won't automatically understand what "L1" or "Left Shoulder" button means, I have a secondary research video source for this actually. Also controllers are a good example of Klei setting up display for all interactions with something close to you or hovered in your inventory, but not on keyboard + mouse. Why the heck is this? This means you are likely to learn more about the game control-wise when playing with a controller as opposed to mouse + keyboard.

Masts are definitely a good example of camera rotation possibly being necessary to learn (though not necessarily, if you put them on the edge of the boat), but it's also something you would deal with occasionally. With 3D terrain, camera turning would definitely become much more prominent and necessary by comparison. Imagine fighting something behind a hill with a mouse-click or mouse-hold and being unable to see and click on yourself or the thing that is attacking your character from behind the hill that is in-between your character and your camera.

You do realise getting research for this would be incredibly difficult? Do you want me to give you an essay with dozens of citations or something? Klei doesn't do much alpha-testing with control groups because they are a small company and that would be too expensive, heck they rely on the beta-test players to extensively test the game and report issues free of charge. I have done some research on game design overall and it would certainly support this player-to-control issue. As a starting point for your own research, I can give you one example I mentioned before, which is a video discussing a new player's experience with games and controls are one very important aspect of it. I would suggest taking a look at this video, then making a response. You can't dismiss a point simply because no evidence to support a train of through does not, you have to think about the and whether evidence is even all that necessary just to present a point.

Evidence certainly helps, but the necessity entirely depends on how extraordinary a claim presented is perceived (if you think my claim is extraordinary you probably understand little to nothing about game design). Given I was clear enough, what I claimed should be evidently common sense if anything. If every point required a bunch of facts and research to be any level of valid none would make any points, and we would be stuck in loops of doing extensive research for the most minute things, which at a certain point becomes too time-consuming and ridiculous. Or do you also want me to present research and evidence regarding the point regarding the claim that extensive research being ridiculous and time-consuming for a simple forum post to make a point for people who may not care or even understand the contents of as well?

More evidence to me you don't understand much about game design, period.

You are going to mock my knowledge of game design yet expect every game to cater to the needs of the unexperienced? Yeah right, I'm sure Dark Souls will add a tutorial and make it easy enough for people who have never played a game before. 

You say "Expect everyone playing to have never played a video game in their life, AND to not bother looking at the controls" like this is a game for people who are still shitting themselves and thats ignorant

Not only that but you make some off the walls claim about how they "dont do alpha testing with control groups because it would be expensive". Why is that necessary, why would you BUY people to test things when you have a community of people who actually play your game who are willing to do it for free? You act like they do public betas out of poverty and that is more evidence to me you are talking out of your own opinions and biased because "research is expensive", this poll costed me a entire 30 seconds to make to gather information on people's thoughts and opinions. 

Clearly you are going to grasp at straws until I am grey and dead so I will refuse for speaking to you further,

Sir Lord Gamer Game Design Master and King of All That is Technological

[Mike23Ua]

Well.. anyone remember how characters and gold or whatever once was see through behind boulders/trees/fires and stuff?

I am 100% certain this was intentional..and would likely be a requirement for something like this.

[.]

6 hours ago, TemporarySolutn said:

I was talking about terrain, not ANY of that

On 8/28/2021 at 1:44 PM, ZombieDupe said:

 

7 hours ago, TemporarySolutn said:

3D shading system and sun location

If there is no 3D shading, you will not understand which side is which side if you rotate camera because DST shadow is not a different texture, it's in texture of walls. You will not understand de deepth of a place until you go to end of it. As you can see from this pic, this two same build looks totally different.

It will cause so much confusing optic problems. If you look at your image, you will see that things are important things in 3D game.

On 8/27/2021 at 6:36 PM, Slagger said:

flexable camera

Camera in DST don't turn around of things bc they are 2D. they turn ground and changes location of creatures with fliping their sprites. Anything in game don't have "back", they only turn their sprite when you look at them. Because of that, it's really annoying to move 3D on 2D objects, you don't know where are they located exactly.

Just look at that Wurt on right (7:15), she tried to jump on platform but she just jumped to floor because probably she was using a different camera rotation and the place she jumped was looking right for her.

 

 

 

[Dextops]

3 hours ago, Slagger said:

snip

wonder who that beautiful wurt main is in the thumbnail

[JoeW]

Please keep posts polite and without personal attacks. Thanks. 

[Mike23Ua]

YAY!! After hours of searching I finally found the original post. 

This has to absolutely happen at some point.. if not with DST then most defiantly with a sequel sometime in the future, this is the kind of big change that would completely change how we play the game… but without adding difficult content making the game any harder on people who already struggled learning to play. 
and until Klei flat out says “it’s never happening” I will remain hopeful to see this!
 

[ZombieDupe]

On 8/30/2021 at 2:40 PM, TemporarySolutn said:

You are going to mock my knowledge of game design yet expect every game to cater to the needs of the unexperienced? Yeah right, I'm sure Dark Souls will add a tutorial and make it easy enough for people who have never played a game before. 

You say "Expect everyone playing to have never played a video game in their life, AND to not bother looking at the controls" like this is a game for people who are still shitting themselves and thats ignorant

Yes and for a good reason. If the catering doesn't ruin the professional's experience, which it shouldn't, that's excellent game design actually.

On 8/30/2021 at 2:40 PM, TemporarySolutn said:

You are going to mock my knowledge of game design yet expect every game to cater to the needs of the unexperienced? Yeah right, I'm sure Dark Souls will add a tutorial and make it easy enough for people who have never played a game before. 

You say "Expect everyone playing to have never played a video game in their life, AND to not bother looking at the controls" like this is a game for people who are still shitting themselves and thats ignorant

Not only that but you make some off the walls claim about how they "dont do alpha testing with control groups because it would be expensive". Why is that necessary, why would you BUY people to test things when you have a community of people who actually play your game who are willing to do it for free? You act like they do public betas out of poverty and that is more evidence to me you are talking out of your own opinions and biased because "research is expensive", this poll costed me a entire 30 seconds to make to gather information on people's thoughts and opinions. 

Large studios have done exactly that for several reasons. If you researched it you'd know, maybe even understand why. Public beta-testing can only get you so far and it relies on people spending their free time testing the game for you unpaid. We had many more companies with more hired testers before, now it's moving towards expecting their player base to do it free of charge for them, heck even paying the companies to do it for them, and in many ways, it has resulted in worse and unfinished games overall.